Spare The Retarded

It's good to know that Thom Marshall (or Tom Marshall, as the blurb at the bottom says), the Chron's Potted Plant with a Keyboard, has weighed in on an important issue:

My own opinion on the death penalty has changed. Twice.

Elsewhere, serious people have written about the Supreme Court's recent decision to disallow the execution of retarded persons. Eugene Volokh gets to the legal point quickly and succinctly: it's a terrible legal decision.

Nevertheless, it's an interesting decision, as it's probably going to lead to a political debate over the death penalty more broadly. Jonathan Turley's article in the LA Times is a taste of what's likely to come. James Q. Wilson anticipated Turley's and similar arguments nearly a year ago, in a piece reproduced in NRO -- not surprising, since Wilson is usually well ahead of the curve on social issues.

I don't really have a horse in this race -- in many ways, the death penalty is barbaric, and the chance for error does exist. I do hate to see the Constitution tortured so that we get the political outcome desired, however -- why not make the case at the state level and repeal the laws? Ah, yes -- because too many of those backwards rubes in those unenlightened don't want to repeal it, and we wouldn't want federalism or democracy to get in the way of those who know better, would we? Of course not!

But isn't it interesting that, after all these years of arguing IQ is a wholly unreliable measure, in effect a myth -- it's now the pillar upon which liberals are building their national anti-death penalty case?

[Posted at 15:10 CST on 06/22/02] [Link]